The ABCs of the ELA debacle

The hottest political potato in science over the past year and a half was the shuttering of Canada’s Experimental Lakes Area.

Since 1968, this internationally renowned facility has conducted research into threats to Canada’s freshwater lakes and fish. The work has been conducted in 58 small lakes in northwestern Ontario. Not only has the ELA brought Canada to the forefront of aquatic science, its scientific discoveries have been instrumental in guiding Canadian government policies to control algal blooms, understand climate change, tackle the acid rain problem and reduce mercury pollution, to name just a few examples.

Until recently, the ELA was jointly operated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and Environment Canada (EC), and was staffed by DFO scientists. This came to an unexpected and abrupt end after DFO staff were informed in a closed-door emergency meeting on May 17, 2012, that the ELA was to be shut down.

What happened next is a fascinating lesson on the Harper Conservatives’ modus operandi. Here, we recount some of the key insights Canadians can take home from the Tories’ fumbling of the ELA issue.

A is for Answers … or (more accurately) a lack of them. The reasons for cutting the ELA touted by the responsible Ministers are vague and easily debunked. Then-fisheries minister Keith Ashfield said “research priorities change in scope and location”; then-environment minister Peter Kent stated that “we want to put the research where the challenges are.”

What seemed lost on both men is that the ELA is, and has always been, an experimentalplatform for studying the threats of the day to lakes across Canada. The ELA was established initially to develop solutions for algal blooms in Lake Erie. Since then, over 30 whole-lake experiments have been performed on a wide range of problems, from synthetic hormones found in sewage to escaped fish from aquaculture.

B is for Blundering. Conservative MPs bungled their quasi-justifications for defunding the ELA: Nobody could get the talking points right. Treasury Board President Tony Clement, for example, said the ELA addresses “niche issues” and that current research no longer benefited the lakes in his Muskoka riding. MP Stephen Fletcher argued that moving the ELA out of government would “offer a good opportunity for students”.

Obviously, Fletcher was wholly unaware of the fact that university students have always been a vital part of the ELA. Finally, Conservatives rationalized their decision by saying the facility would be better run by a private operator. This seems like a rather defeatist admission of incompetence — if Tories don’t believe they can adequately operate a low-budget research center, how can we trust them to run a country?

C is for Constituents — the people of Canada, who were quickly forgotten by Conservatives after the last election. Over 30,000 Canadians signed a parliamentary petition calling on the government to reinstate funding for the ELA, a petition that was tabled over 140 times in the House of Commons. Nearly 75 per cent of Canadians opposed the government’s decision to cancel funding for the ELA, including 60 per cent of Conservative voters. Unfortunately, the cries of constituents fell on deaf ears in government – an insult to democracy that’s all too common in today’s Canada under the leadership of Stephen Harper.

D is for Divide-And-Conquer. A classic Conservative tactic is to create false dichotomies to pit Canadians against each other. Take, for example, MP James Bezan, who said that “during tough financial times for our government, (if) I have to make a choice between funding for Lake Winnipeg and funding for the ELA – I’m going to pick Lake Winnipeg every time” because “research is best served by working on exactly where the problem lies”.

Nearly 75 per cent of Canadians opposed the government’s decision to cancel funding for the ELA, including 60 per cent of Conservative voters.

This dichotomy is flawed: Restoring Lake Winnipeg requires a synergy between monitoring the state of the lake and performing controlled experiments in model systems — such as the ELA lakes — to test hypotheses about the causes of and solutions to the lake’s poor health.

F is for Fiscal Mismanagement. The ELA was cut by the government under the guise of austerity, but what do the numbers really tell us? First, the annual operating cost of the ELA was a paltry $800,000, an amount split equally between DFO and EC and recovered, in part, by charging external researchers $60 to $90 a day. Second, while DFO paid the salaries of 17 ELA staff to the tune of about $1.2 million, these scientists raised millions in additional research funds by partnering with industry and university researchers. Third, the government invested $10 million in infrastructure at the ELA over the last decade, including a state-of-art fish laboratory completed in 2011 (paid for, ironically, under Canada’s Economic Action Plan).

Fourth, the government is now flushing taxpayer’s money down the toilet with the ELA shutdown — through legal fees, contracts to inventory and liquidate assets, and severance packages to lay off scientists.

H is for Hypocrisy. The Conservative government nearly killed off the ELA by completely eliminating federal funding, dismembering its all-star science team and making it illegal for scientists to conduct experiments there. Yet in the upside-down universe that is Canada today, Conservatives are patting themselves on the back for saving the ELA — from themselves! In spring, Ashfield expressed gratitude to Conservative MPs for their “hard work”, who then turned around and praised the government. MP Joyce Bateman defended this move and — incredibly — referred to a new deal for the ELA as “a lemons-into-lemonade situation”.

I is for Insult. Conservatives have repeatedly insulted the ELA scientists, despite their incredible track record for producing policy-relevant, world-class science. MP Randy Kamp suggested the ELA is not as “important” as it once was. MP Peter Braid said the government hopes to transition to a partner to takeover “whatever remaining research priorities there may be” and Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said her department “is now focusing on work being conducted at other freshwater research facilities… which will more than adequately meet the departmental research needs.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper would not even be so courteous as to acknowledge the ELA by name when questioned by reporters, referring only to “that project” the government is no longer funding. By far the best example of the disdain Conservatives hold for the ELA and its scientists can be found in the roar of applause from Conservative MPs last spring — when the prime minister proudly voted against the motion to extend funding for the ELA until a new operator was found.

L is for Lie. Conservatives are either willing to blatantly lie about the ELA, or are dangerously misinformed. Exhibit A is a letter sent by Joyce Bateman to her constituents which, among other false claims, stated that “similar ongoing … research (is) being done … in the lakes of Saskatchewan”.

There is no other research facility like the ELA anywhere else in Canada, or even the world. Exhibit B comes from former minister of state for science and technology Gary Goodyear, who argued that whole-lake experiments are unnecessary and outdated, and the “most technologically advanced way” to do science is through smaller scale experiments. This misleading claim was quickly shot down by the president of the Society of Canadian Limnologists.

M is for Muzzle. The DFO bureaucrats charged with handling approvals for interactions between the ELA and the rest of the world seem to have a vocabulary limited to the word “no”.

“No” to reporters requesting interviews with government scientists about the ELA. No to MPs interested in visiting the ELA field station. “No” to the ELA open house events normally held each year for residents of northwestern Ontario. “No” to government scientists wishing to present their research at scientific conferences.

P is for Puppet. Minister of State for Science and Technology Greg Rickford is a textbook example of how Conservative MPs are puppets of the PMO rather than representatives of their constituents. Just a few years ago, Rickford publicly applauded the ELA – which is in his own riding — as “Canada’s most innovative freshwater research facility”, stating “the work that is being done on behalf of Canadians is extraordinary”. He noted that such federal investments in science are “helping to create a science capacity that will drive Canada’s prosperity and quality of life in the future”. Last year, Rickford quickly changed his tune, blindly supporting the government’s decision to shut down the ELA. He declared his constituents were “happy” with the decision — even as they were holding protests, organizing town halls, passing resolutions and writing letters to oppose the government’s decision. Egregiously, for his ability to change direction on a dime and follow marching orders, he seems to have been rewarded with his new position as minister of state.

After the ELA’s imminent closure made international news, Harper received letters of condemnation from scientists around the world.

R is for Reputation. Canada’s tarnished global reputation appears to be of little concern to Conservatives. After the ELA’s imminent closure made international news, Harper received letters of condemnation from scientists around the world — from Israel, Japan, China, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The president of the International Society of Limnology wrote “(this decision) sends the message to the international community that Canada no longer has concern for the future of the Earth’s environment, that it cares only for its own short-term economy, that it is heedless of the problems the next generation of its citizens will face, that it no longer wishes to be a forward-looking, humanitarian society.”

T is for Transparency. Transparency was definitely not a part of the decision-making process that led to the defunding of the ELA. Scientists requested public meetings with Conservative MPs to give them the opportunity to clarify their decision-making process, but these requests were ignored or summarily dismissed. The closest to an explanation that Canadians ever received was Randy Kamp’s drivel that the ELA was cut “through the deficit reduction action plan” in order “to contribute to current and future prosperity.”

V is for Vilify. A tried-and-true method used by Conservatives to quash dissent is character assassination. Not surprisingly, four ELA scientists — ranging from a graduate student to a former chief scientist — were cast in a fundraising letter as “radical ideologues who have led a campaign of misinformation about Greg (Rickford)’s work to protect the Experimental Lakes Area”. The letter was written by the Kenora Conservative riding association president, also a federal employee working in Rickford’s office.

W is for Water. Perhaps another fluid may flow through Stephen Harper’s veins, but for the rest of us, water is essential for life and our most precious resource – a truism that only the current Canadian government seems unable to grasp. The most damning lesson from the Harper Conservatives is not that they don’t think the ELA fits their mandate, but that they don’t believe it’s the Canadian government’s job to study, preserve and protect Canada’s aquatic ecosystems.

The ELA issue has left a black mark on the Conservative brand. It’s not a matter of whether the party will lose seats over this issue in the next election, but how many. If Harper and his clan want to win back some of those disenchanted voters, there are three things they need to do now.

First, Ottawa must negotiate in good faith to transfer the ELA research center to the potential new operator — the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Second, Ottawa must move quickly on writing exemptions to federal laws to allow for scientific experiments to resume at the ELA next spring. Third, Ottawa should provide a one-time injection of funds towards an the ELA endowment fund, the interest on which could cover the ELA’s operation costs in perpetuity.

Considering the federal Conservatives are willing to spend $25 million on an international oilsands advertising blitz, surely some of our tax dollars could be earmarked for, say, the science needed to protect our country’s fresh water?

Dr. Diane Orihel is a freshwater ecologist who studies the fate and effects of contaminants in freshwater ecosystems. She works to understand the impacts of industrial activities on freshwater and to develop practical solutions to improve human and ecosystem health. Orihel unexpectedly stepped into the world of advocacy last year to lead the fight to save the Experimental Lakes Area.

Maude Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and chair of the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch. She is a board member of the San Francisco–based International Forum on Globalization and a councillor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.